


Before

by suspiciousteapot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Duty, F/M, Family, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suspiciousteapot/pseuds/suspiciousteapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brynden Tully teaches Cat to shoot an arrow, and what ensues from those lessons. Written for Ned x Cat Week, Day 1: Spring: From birth to marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before

**Author's Note:**

> Technically bending the rules of the Ned x Cat week prompt a bit with the end of the chapter, but I reeeally wanted to add it so there it is.  
> All the characters and whatnot belong to George R. R. Martin.  
> Kudos, constructive criticism and other comments are always appreciated.

She loved to walk by the river with her uncle. She got to do so more frequently these days as her mother was large with child and Lysa took longer to finish her sewing than Catelyn, being only six to Catelyn’s eight, her fingers were still pudgy with baby fat and clumsy.

This time, instead of taking the usual path to the river, her uncle took her to the armory.

She was confused, but followed him, thinking he must have something he wanted to tell Pulver, the blacksmith. Instead, he walked past Pulver and into a shed where they kept the swords, bows and other weapons. Catelyn hesitated at the entrance, aware that this was not her place.

“Take this.” Brynden ordered when he emerged from the shed. He handed her what seemed to Catelyn to be a large bow.

“Why? Am I to bring it to Father?” She inquired.

“No.” Her uncle said simply, crossing his arms.

She guessed was he was about then.  
“Uncle, ladies aren’t supposed to learn to shoot.” Catelyn reprimanded him.

“Why not? I want to teach you, and unless I don’t know you as my niece, you want to learn. I’ve seen you watching your father’s squire, and don’t tell me it’s because he’s handsome. I reckon you’ll be better at it than him in no time.”

She didn’t argue. She’d seen her father’s gangly squire practicing, and it did seem quite fun, despite the boy’s obvious frustration. She liked how quiet it was, so unlike the loud, raucous clanging of swords. It was calm and deliberate.

It was also hard. Her arm ached and shook as she tried to draw the string back. 

Her uncle had showed her the proper form, and loosed an arrow that thwacked into the center of a practice target. The he had handed her the bow and walked closer. She followed.

“Now you try, Cat. Don’t expect to get it the first time.”

He gave her a leather hand protector and helped position her. 

She tried and tried until her fingers were raw and tears blurred her vision.  
Finally she managed to notch an arrow, but before she could even begin to aim, the arrow swung away from the bow and her arm released the string, quivering with exhaustion. The arrow felt uselessly by her feet.

“Good.” Pronounced her uncle.

“I couldn’t even loose an arrow. How was that good?” She yelled, chin quivering as she failed to hold back her tears.

“Because that was an adult’s bow; a bow for a man grown. Nobody starts with a bow like that, yet you did not give up. Now let’s try you with a training bow.”

He took her bow and walked back to collect said bow as Catelyn stared after him, smarting with anger. She had felt so stupid, a little girl with a bow she barely draw, let alone shoot. How could he do that to her? She wanted to yell at him, or walk away, but then she would truly fail. She hated failing at things. She would not give up.

He walked back with a smaller bow and a different quiver.

Though her arm still trembled, she lifted the bow, her uncle adjusting her stance, and drew back the string. It was still hard, but she managed it. She released the arrow before she had a chance to aim; her arm hurt too much to hold it back. The arrow flew a short distance and embedded itself into the ground a short ways from the target.

“Again.”

She would not speak to him. She would not yell as she had, but she would not even look at him. 

After a couple of hours, she still had not hit the target, but she was getting closer.

“You’ve done well, Cat. Shall we try again tomorrow?”

She nodded. Still unwilling to speak, but remembering her manners, she muttered, “thank you, Uncle.”

He smiled at her. “Sleep well, little Cat.”

Her anger burned well into the night, keeping her awake well past when she should have slept, but at some point it turned into pride and excitement. She was angry that he’d made her try something he knew she’d fail at, but he had also believed she could learn to shoot as well as any boy.

~

She practiced when she could, trying to finish her sewing as quickly as possible so she could run out and find her uncle. Seeing her father’s squire practicing from her window did nothing for her concentration. She frequently made mistakes in her sewing patterns, but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was practice with the bow.  
One day, several weeks after their lessons had started, when Cat ran outside after her lessons, her uncle was waiting for her on a grey mare. A chestnut pony stood beside him, saddled and ready. 

“It’s past time you learned to ride properly.” Brynden informed her.

Cat frowned. “I heave been learning to ride properly, but I well do so with with that saddle.”

“Not on the side,” Brynden said in exasperation, “seated properly astride the horse.”

And so her uncle also taught he also to ride like a man. Every other day they talked and rode all the way to the Tumblestones and then raced the river back to Riverrun.

After her lessons with her uncle, she and Lysa would run to the river, tearing off their dresses as they ran. They would plunge into the blue waters and swim and laugh until it was time for dinner.

~

One evening she heard her father and her uncle arguing about her new lessons as she and Lysa snuck back to their rooms, covered in river mud.

“She’s a girl, Brynden.”

She and Lysa shared a look and then edged closer to door, which was slightly ajar.

“Well give me a boy and I’ll teach him. But if that doesn’t happen, make Cat your heir. She’s smart, a quick learner, she rides and shoot better than your lunk of a squire and -”

“And she’s a girl! You’re so determined to be the black fish you wear on your banners that you forget reality. The babe Minisa carries will, gods be willing, be a boy. Catelyn will be married to a noble lord and keep his home and bear him children. Even if we never have a son, she will marry the second son of some other house and he will be the Lord of Riverrun. She will have no use for her knowledge of how to shoot an arrow and ride like a man. It will only confuse her. You are making it harder for her to face reality. You do her a disservice.”

Brynden huffed angrily, threw up his arms and she heard his angry footsteps retreat towards the door.

“I cannot speak with you when you are like this Hoster.”

As they quickly ran away, Cat could hear her father’s words echoing in her mind. “You are making it harder for her to face reality.”

“Well, he’s right that you couldn’t be Father’s heir.” Lysa commented when they got back to their rooms, out of breath. “I don’t know why you like learning to shoot anyways. That’s for men.”

“I know.” Cat whispered.

That night Cat worried that her uncle would stop his lessons so soon after they’d begun. She knew that her father was right and that she’d marry a lord and be his lady one day, but she so loved her uncle’s lessons. What was more, after her brother was born, her uncle would have to stop his lessons because then there was a boy he could teach, so it was not as if the lessons would continue long after he was born. 

However, when she asked him the following morning, he laughed. 

“You think I’m going to teach a babe fresh born how to shoot an arrow? I thought you had more of a mind than that little Cat.”

She had flushed and snapped, “Well father said you should not be teaching me such things in any case, and you cannot disobey him.”

Brynden had raised his bushy eyebrows and eyed her suspiciously. 

“And how do you know that?” He asked.

“I…” she began.

“Young ladies should not listen at doors any more than they should learn to shoot.” He reprimanded her mockingly.

She flushed even deeper and looked at the ground. “It’s only that I heard you and Father shouting and then I heard what you were shouting about and could not walk away. I am sorry for listening to conversations that I had no right to hear.”

Her uncle softened and dropped to one knee beside her.

“Little Cat, you had every right to hear a conversation that bears on your future. Knowing what you now know, would you still like for me to teach you?”

She remembered her father’s words about how she would not need to know such things in the future, but she could not bring herself to say no. She learned to be a lady all day, and she had always known that she wouldn’t be able to do this when she was married. 

“If I say yes, will Father be angry with me?” She asked in a small voice.

“Let me talk to your father. Your desire to continue learning is all I need.” He said gently.

Catelyn had one more question, one she suspected she knew the answer to, but wanted to ask anyways.

“What will happen when my brother is born?”

Brynden answered without hesitation. “I will teach him when he is old enough to learn, but by then you will have to spend your time helping your mother and learning to be the lady of a great house. You will have no time for our lessons and I will miss them greatly. But that is some years from us.”

Catelyn nodded. It was the answer she had expected.

“But come now, we have much to learn today. You have yet to hit the center of the target.”

Brushing off her concerns about the future, she followed her uncle over to the archery range and retrieved her bow and quiver.

~

Catelyn was ten when her mother went to childbed for the fourth and final time. She sat on a bench outside her mother’s chambers with Lysa and held little Edmure, who did not understand why their mother was screaming so, in her lap, rubbing his back. Uncle Brynden sat with them, not saying a word. After a while, Edmure fell asleep, though the screams did not abate.

Suddenly it was very quiet. 

Her uncle stood and Cat rose as well.

“No, Cat. Stay here a moment.” He said quietly, his voiced strained.

Her uncle entered the room and did not exit for what seemed like hours.

When he did, his blue eyes were full of sorrow, but she did not understand why. She did not want to understand why.  
He knelt in front of her and Lysa “I’m so sorry. Your mother and the babe are gone.” Brynden said gently.

Suddenly everything seemed like a horrible dream. She heard a wail come from Lysa and distantly she heard someone sobbing from inside her mother’s rooms. Father.

In a dream, she told her uncle to go to her father, and he did, after kissing her and Lysa on the head.

In a dream, she comforted a sobbing Lysa and Edmure, who had woken at Lysa’s cries didn’t quite understand where Mother had gone, but was upset that he couldn’t see her.

“SHE’S DEAD EDMURE. DEAD. GONE -” Lysa shouted.

“Stop.” Catelyn said sharply.

All at once, Lysa seemed to deflate. She sobbed and Edmure stared crying too. Catelyn held them and felt tears sliding down her own face into her siblings’ hair.

~

Catelyn watched her father light an arrow as they all stood on the dock by the river. His arm trembled as he drew back the bowstring.

Through her grief, Catelyn noticed that he unconsciously aimed the arrow to the left of the boat that carried her mother. He was compensating for the wind. She almost laughed that this was the first time she had observed something from her uncle’s lessons. The laugh turned into a strangled sob as he father loosed the arrow. Lysa squeezed her hand in support.

His arm had shaken too much though, and the arrow landed in the water next to her mother’s boat.

“Hoster, I can - ” Brynden began softly.

“No.” Her father said sharply. “No. She was my wife.” He chocked on the last word and seemed unable to say more. He drew another arrow and lit it.

This time, his aim was true and the arrow landed in the boat.

Catelyn watched as flames licked over the red and blue of the blanket they’d laid over Mother that morning. 

She watched until the flaming boat was out of sight and the river was dark.

~

Father was not quite the same anymore. There was pain when he looked at Catelyn now, and she could see it in his eyes when he looked at Lysa too.

He spoke little and never smiled. The dark circles under his eyes deepened and he got thinner.

Catelyn took on more and more and caused no trouble in any of her lessons or otherwise, trying to get her father to look less like a ghost and more like the warm man he’d been before.

She focused on every stitch of her sewing, every detail of the ledgers, trying the lady her mother was, the lady she now had to be. 

Gradually, she could see it made a difference. He started smiling more, and even laughing on occasion. 

Edmure barely remembered Mother, and Lysa eventually returned to her sweet, joyful self. They ran again to the river to swim. It was the only childish thing Catelyn still allowed herself.

When her father announced that they would have a ward, she thanked him for the opportunity to meet someone new and offered to prepare a feast for his arrival. He had smiled then and thanked her.

“You are truly a comfort, my little Cat,” he’d said, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

“Someday you will make a young lord a very good wife,” he added. His smile was sad, bit it was there at least. Idly she wondered who that lord would be, what he would be like. She and Lysa had often wondered this, giggling about brave, strong lords who looked like the ones described in the songs.

~

On her twelfth name day, her father informed her that he’d been talking with Rickard Stark, and they had arranged a marriage between her and Stark’s eldest son Brandon.

She was shocked, but her shock was tempered by a small flutter of excitement.

“Might I meet him, Father?” She asked politely.

“Of course, Cat. We discussed having Lord Stark and Brandon over within the next moon.”

“Will I be married then?” She queried with some trepidation, for she did not want to leave her family just yet. 

“No! Gods no. You will not be wedded for many years, do not fear.” 

“I’m not scared Father, I just don’t want to leave you, Lysa and Edmure alone so soon,” she explained.

He smiled his new sad smile and hugged her. “I know Cat. You are a dutiful daughter and you do our family proud.”

Comforted, she asked if she could plan the feast and accommodations for the Starks.

“I would have it no other way.” Hoster said. After a moment, he added, “you are so like your mother.” 

~

As Catelyn surreptitiously watched Arya shooting arrows with her brothers, she remembered that child of so long ago learning to shoot with her uncle. Arya was younger than she had been then, but she too would have to learn what Catelyn had learned; playing at being a boy was as much of a song as the ones Sansa so loved. 

Both of her daughters would have to grow up and realize that life was not so simple as following what you wanted, be it true love or fighting arts and roughhousing. They would both have to grow up to be responsible, down to earth ladies who could manage a house and help their husbands. Worry that they would have to learn that by experience instead of being prepared for it often pressed on her mind. 

Sansa would have to learn that the world was not a song, but that was something Catelyn let slide, because that discovery would not hurt Sansa as it would Arya. So she focused her effort on her younger daughter, frequently telling Arya that she should not act so like a boy, but her younger daughter persisted in secretly practicing fighting. Catelyn knew Ned sometimes allowed this, as he loved Arya’s fierce nature and it reminded him of his sister. This frustrated her sometimes, for Ned did not understand how hard the world was on women, how Arya would suffer if she were not prepared for reality. 

She loved her daughter’s fierce will to do everything the boys were allowed to do, and understood it well, but it would hurt her in time if she did not come to understand that young ladies were not made for such things. 

Yet today she did not have the strength to tell Arya this. Just for this day she wished as she had not since before her mother died that the Gods did not forbid women from the practices of men. 

Not for the first time, she wondered why the gods made girls with Arya’s temperament when their rules forbade them from exercising it. Still, it was not her place to question the Gods. If her daughters would accept that the world was not a song of warriors and maidens, they would still find that the world could be marvelous, happy and full of love and joy, if they could accept their places in it.

A maid who informed her of a raven from her sister called Catelyn back from her thoughts. She turned away from the little dark-haired girl of the present and the little red-haired girl of the past, both learning to shoot a bow and ignoring the days when the spring of their youth would come to an end.


End file.
